![]() Tunnels connecting more than 1,500 concealed ammunition dumps, pillboxes,Īrtillery emplacements, and bunkers. Deeper in, he also utilized a deadly network of nearly a dozen miles of Waited until, 20 minutes in, the beach was crowded with men and equipmentīefore unleashing overlapping artillery and machine gun barrages from everyĪngle. Itself received only a comparatively modest defensive response. The beaches, Kuribayashi held back, defending more in depth. In the Gilbert, Marshall, and Mariana Islands. Tadamichi Kuribayashi broke with Japanese doctrine established in earlier battles Commanding the defense, Lieutenant General This prolonged battle signaled that the Japanese, too, learned ![]() More than four weeks beyond the iconic flag-raising, which many assume marked US Marine Corps photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Photographed by Ragus on February 20, 1945. Marines prepare to attack Motoyama Airfield #1 at H-Hour, 0900, 500 yards inland from Yellow 2 Beach. The US force represented the zenith of forcible entry from the sea. The V Amphibious Corps, comprised principally of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Marine Divisions, owned a 3-to-1 advantage over the defenders, and were better armed, more experienced, and more exhaustively supported than any fighting force in the preceding Allied island campaigns. By this point, the US Navy enjoyed near-total domination of sky and sea, and offshore of Iwo, the US Fifth Fleet’s months of naval and aerial bombardment of the island were thought to have killed or taken the fight out of the defenders. The optimism wasn’t entirely without justification. US battle planners expected the fight to last under a week. Of the Pacific War in which US casualties outnumbered Japanese. The 21,000-strong Japanese force survived the fight. Just so, from February 19 to March 26, 1945, 6,821 Americans andĪpproximately 20,000 Japanese died in the fight. It’s as if the reeking island was gestated and purpose-bred for Ocean.” Its porkchop-shaped landscape-already conjuring images ofīutchered meat-is an unrelieved gray, gray-green, brown, and black, the hues ofĬamouflage. “an ugly, smelly glob of cold lava squatting in a surly In Goodbye, Darkness, his memoir of the Pacific war, denounces Iwo as As a physical thing it is decried for its ugliness. Jima-or Sulphur Island-is eight square miles of spewed earth some 650 miles Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima on February 23, 1945, by Joe Rosenthal.
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